Cuba and No Kings

Three weeks ago I was in Havana.

In the garden of the Hotel Nacional in a Cuban-designed and -made shirt.

Three days ago I was in a No Kings march in NYC.

On 6th Ave, NYC, with my buddy Jim.

Herewith, some thoughts and photos.

This was my third trip to Cuba. The most recent before this was January, 2020. That was during the first Trump presidency, but the legacy of loosening of restrictions from the Obama years could still be felt everywhere there. Lots of tourists, lots of artists, lots of hope that things could get better. It was a bright, lively time.

Then came COVID. Since Cuba re-opened after that, the tourists haven’t come back in numbers. The US embargo, started in 1960 in response to Cuba exporting Communist revolution around the world, still uselessly continues, like a many-decade feud with your sibling over something that happened when you were teenagers. Cuba’s no longer exporting revolution. Or coffee, or sugar, or cigars. A lot of this is the fault of the embargo, but some is the fault of the Cuban government. They were happy to let first Russian and then Venezuela underwrite them, and they never established an economy that was self-sustaining. This trip, I found things noticeably worse than last time. Blackouts, water shortages, uncollected garbage...

On the other hand, I hasten to say, I had a great time. The friend I went with has family there. We went to a concert by his musician cousin, saw art galleries and new start-up shops, ate well, saw jazz on a hotel roof. The Cuban people are still the warm, kind folks I encountered on my first trip there. They’re tired but they’re still trying. They still hope.

Gerardo Alfonso on stage.

Looking down from our balcony.

Cooler inside…

Sunset.

A local park.

Jazz on the roof under a full moon.

The other warm, kind folks, also tired and also still trying, are the folks I marched with on Saturday. While the US president posts infantile memes of himself in a crown dropping shit on protestors from a plane, hippos and frogs and grandmas and kids marched and rallied all over the world, in what’s increasingly looking like a last-ditch effort to prevent fascism from stomping this country flat. I still think we can do it. But it needs to be now.

Protesting hippo-cracy.

Teachers.

Nurses.

Venceremos!